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Jeffchiz

My 2003 320 Ci M-Sport *advise Needed* Pic Heavy

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Hi, all just joined the site as i have bought my self a 2003 320 ci m-sport the 2.2 167bhp engine. I Bought it as a project, i usually mess around with saxos/106's buy, fix up and sell on, i have now branched out in to bimmers!

I bought it off my brothers mate, my brother said that the cylinder bores need re-boring (i guess he meant honing), i bought the car thinking he didnt know what he was talking about and thought it might just be the headgasket, but apparantly the last owner took it to BMW and they said he needs a new engine (im still skeptical as they didnt take the engine apart), my dad spoke to his BMW supplier and he said that the unleaded fuel can wear away at the cylinder walls, so the stories seem to be matching up pointing that a new engine is in order and im in a deam world thinking its an easy fix and just being the head gasket.

I was told this is a common problem?

If so what are my options? full engine re build? new lower mileage bottom end (current engine is on 170k miles), or a new engine?

The symptoms are: the water system is pressurising when sat in traffic (steam coming out of the cap), it some times goes in to a weird mode where it wont go over 2.5/3k revs and it has hardly no power and stalls, but other days it drives fine and seems to pull alright, its using oil (i think i found the probelm seems to be leaking out of the oil filter housing-so i think is an unrelated problem), i dont think water and oil are mixing and it doesnt over heat (thats if the temp gauge is reliable) so everything is pointing to that the headgakset is fine.

any help would be much appreciated :)

heres some pics

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Hi mate, welcome to the zone!

The car looks lovely, other than the M badge in the bumper grill :P

With regards to your engine problem, I don't really know what the problem could be - have you tried checking the fault codes?

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Hi mate, welcome to the zone!

The car looks lovely, other than the M badge in the bumper grill :P

With regards to your engine problem, I don't really know what the problem could be - have you tried checking the fault codes?

thanks :)

yea the badge will be coming off when i can be bothered lol annoyingly enough my mate got a fault code reader after we started stripping the engine down, im thinking it'll be a safe bet to just fit a new engine, however there is a 2.2 bottom end on ebay for £150 which is tempting, cheap enough to risk it just in case it is the bottom end

Edited by Jeffchiz
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If you take the head off and it all checks out OK (pressure test it etc) then you may as well just buy the bottom end only?

exactly my thoughts, youd hope with a lower mlieage bottom end and and anew headgasket/service it should sort it out

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Told you it wasn't the gasket, btw don't believe the temp gauge its damped to sit central no matter what

you never said it wasnt the head gasket you said headgaskets are hard to fix lol i was thinking that about the gauge, steam would be pouring out and the temp gauage was still on half ha

Have you checked over the cooling system? They are a week point on our E46's

any particular points which are classed as weak i can check?

Welcome along ! Some real nice pics there,obviously i dont mean the ones with all the french pap :P

nothing wrong with frenchies in your life :P i own a cammed, throttle bodied vts atm

Edited by Jeffchiz
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any particular points which are classed as weak i can check?

Expansion tank is prone to cracking a long the corner(s)

Radiator can sag at the bottom, could be possible that it has sagged and a previous owner used something like radweld which is clogging something up

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Welcome, there are a few of us from saxperience, I'm dannyvts

ah yes i recognise the username, you had a nice clio :)

Ive just bought a new engine off ebay, which 'Wash' kindly pm'd me a link to a few days ago i was hoping to get it for £435 delivered but i was bidding against some on else and the final price was £535 delivered on an engine with 72k not bad, there was an engine in essex on 54k for £636 delivered, but ive saved my self £100 and this engine has 100k less than the original engine so its all good :)

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Finally got the gearbox off today! weve been held up by a stubbon bolt, the head was bending on it so you couldnt use any force on it as the socket just slipped off so i ended up angle grinding the head off and we slide the box off the stud

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tomorrows job is to dissconnect the rest of the bits from the engine, then wednesday im going to get an engine crane and its being pulled out.

Either wednesday or thursday the new engine should be in and would like to spend friday fitting the box and then its just the small task of sorting out the masses or wires,clips etc world of difference away from a saxo loom!

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Good work dude. Can you do everyone a favour and take a pic of where the engine earths are located on both chassis and engine.

Then post the pics in this thread here:

http://www.e46zone.c...erious-problem/

Guy is having lots of issues that could possibly be earth related since he had a recent engine swap.

T I A :)

Edited by Matt_S
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Well hello there Jeffchiz, another sax-p member converted to get something good ;) ha

I have the same unser name over on sacks pee :)

That engine was a good buy tbh :D

hey mate! I'm swamped with saxp users on here lol We'll see about the engine tbh (always a risk buying a second hand engine) im fed up with the car i dont think ill care if its doesnt run i just want it back in one piece!

i got the old engine out on tuesday and i managed to get the new engine in by myself today (very proud silly.gif lol), safe to say I'm soaked through but it's in!

Old one coming out

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New one in :)

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next days job will be to fit the gearbox/prop shaft and exhasut and then thats all the major work done and just need to connect up the masses of wires and pipes lol never going to complain about working on a saxo again! Really is a proper car to work on not like the saxo toys lol (whether that is a good thing or not im not sure lol)

Edited by Jeffchiz
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